bubble zones

Graphic Anti-Abortion Signs Feel Like Visual Terrorism, But Should They Be Banned?
*Trigger Warning: This article discusses the graphic imagery used by some anti-abortion protesters*

by Katherine Singh
Sep 26, 2018

It was a typical Friday afternoon in July for Apiecalypse Now! owner Jennifer Bundock. The vegan pizzeria owner was driving to her east end Toronto location when she received a text from the manager of her west end location: “We’ve got a situation.”

Anti-abortion activists had set up shop in front of the restaurant with graphic signs. She pulled a U-turn and headed back to the Bloor Street spot, passing the old Honest Ed’s lot and pulling up 10 minutes later in front of her restaurant. Then she started live-streaming on Instagram. In a now-viral video, Bundock exits her car and confronts a group of anti-abortion activists, who were standing outside of her restaurant in plain view of the front window, holding large signs depicting dismembered and bloody fetuses. What the video didn’t show? Bundock’s customers, who were attempting to stand in front of the protestors’ signs when she arrived, trying to shield the images from passersby as well as the daycare and Girl Scout office around the corner.

Explainer: what are abortion clinic safe-access zones and where do they exist in Australia?

June 14, 2018
Tania Penovic

New South Wales recently became the fifth Australian jurisdiction to enact legislation that establishes safe-access zones around abortion clinics.

The legislation is a response to picketing of clinics by anti-abortion protesters for more than two decades. These protesters characterise themselves as “sidewalk counsellors” but their conduct has included verbal abuse, threats, impeding entry to clinics, displaying violent imagery and acts of “disturbing theatre” such as pushing a blood-splattered doll in a pram.

Safe-access zones are sometimes called bubble zones because they create a bubble around an abortion clinic in which certain conduct is prohibited. NSW will now impose safe-access zones of 150 metres around clinics that provide abortions.

Anti-abortion campaigners have been accused of harassing women outside abortion clinics across the UK. With one council now deciding whether to ban them, some women say they are still haunted by protesters' behaviour.

"They said I was a murderer... that I was killing something with a heartbeat," Lisa Jones tells the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme.

She says she was harassed a number of years ago by anti-abortion protesters surrounding the entrance to an abortion clinic in Ealing, west London, where she was being seen.

EDMONTON — Alberta has introduced legislation to keep protesters at least 50 metres away from abortion clinics, and to make it illegal for demonstrators to video, record audio or take pictures of people entering or leaving the building.

The province would also, if asked, designate similar no-go zones around homes and offices of doctors and other staff who provide abortions.

Bill 9, the Protecting Choice for Women Accessing Health Care Act, would mean protesters could not stand within 50-metre zones of the Kensington Clinic in Calgary and Women's Health Options in Edmonton.

Buffer zones urged as Lent anti-abortion vigils target clinics
Calls for new legislation to be brought in after women report being left frightened and anxious

Frances Perraudin
Sat 17 Mar 2018

Women’s groups have renewed calls for buffer zones around clinics as anti-abortion campaigners increase their activities to coincide with Lent.

The US anti-abortion group 40 Days For Life is currently holding 12 vigils outside clinics in cities across the UK, including Birmingham, Manchester and Cardiff. The vigils, which will run until Palm Sunday (25 March), are staffed with volunteers, who carry placards and hand out literature attempting aim to dissuade women from terminating pregnancies.

Why buffer zones around abortion clinics do not threaten the right to protest
February 13, 2018
Arianne Shahvisi

Ealing council in West London could soon set up a buffer zone to limit the harassment faced by patients of a local abortion clinic. The clinic is run by the reproductive health charity Marie Stopes, one of many abortion providers across the UK regularly targeted by anti-abortion protestors. In mid-January, councillors voted to launch a public consultation about the creation of a Public Space Protection Order, or buffer zone, around the clinic.

Common forms of anti-abortion protest include public prayer, hymns, and chanting. Protesters also distribute leaflets exaggerating the risks of abortion, display posters including images of aborted foetuses, strew

How UK anti-abortion activists use American tactics to shock and shame women
Phoebe Braithwaite
19 December 2017

50 years after the 1967 Abortion Act, the anti-abortion movement is consolidating – with transatlantic support.

Anti-abortion activists gathered outside the UK Houses of Parliament on 27 October to protest 50 years since the passing into law of the UK’s 1967 Abortion Act. Nina Naidu* was working nearby, and went to take a closer look.

Like many women in the UK, she had previous, personal experience with both abortion and virulent anti-choice demonstrators. Earlier this year, the 24-year-old decided to terminate a pregnancy, and was accosted by protestors on the way to her appointment.

A Canadian province is tabling legislation that would make it illegal to protest outside abortion clinics. Ontario's attorney general announced on Thursday that the government will introduce the Safe Access to Abortion Services Act.

If passed, the legislation would create "safe access zones" around abortion clinics as well as the homes of staff. Anti-abortion activists would not be allowed to protest within at least 50m (164ft) of a clinic or staff residence.

‘Safe zone’ around abortion clinics in WA supported by Labor left faction

Daniel Emerson
Monday, 14 August 2017

Health Minister Roger Cook has made the case for “safe access zones” banning protests around abortion clinics, setting the scene for a bruising ideological brawl in the lead-up to Labor’s State conference.

The Left’s powerful United Voice faction has thrown its weight behind a suite of women’s health policies by a new internal group called WA Labor for Choice, which includes free, taxpayer-funded abortions anywhere in the State.